#Geocache365: Week 2 - August 16th-22nd

Kris: So this week posed two challenges.  We had a two day relay race and NO idea if we would have the opportunity to get away long enough or far enough from the team to pick up our caches.  Thank goodness for Pocket Queries!!  Using the Geocaching.com tool, Mark created a route which plotted all caches within 0.25 miles of the race course and we crossed our fingers.  Also, after several days of staring and obsessing over the History Cache I at Wild River State Park, Mark (with the permission of the cache owner) put together an unofficial event to gather up cachers that have been working to solve it. Mark: Since it was less then two weeks I was unable to create an Event Cache but Minnesota has a very active geocaching community and by posting a note on the MnGCA.com event forum I was able to get a number of cachers interested in getting together to compare notes. We met at the park and hoped for success.  Lucky for us, the prize included a pathtag.

Monday: Day 8 - Plan B Welcome to Victoria, Sugar.

Mark: The original plan was to find a cache out in Waconia after dinner with Kris's parents. Decided that it was getting to late for the hike and could not find where to park so we reverted to plan B.  Kris: We've also decided that each of "Team Dogs" will be making an appearance during our #Geocache365 challenge.  My girl Sugar is the first.  She enjoys coming out caching with us.  Once we saw the cacher that placed this one, we knew exactly what type of container to look for :)

Tuesday: Day 9 - Only Outdoors is right.

Mark: This was a lunchtime getaway with dual purpose, not only did we find our cache for the day but I also got my new Timex Ironman Global Trainer in the store. Kris: Easy find, very friendly first find to anyone who just purchased a GPS from here :) 

Wednesday: Day 10 - Penguins are more familiar with Southern Stars.

Mark: This used to be the Viking Council back in the days when I was a Boy Scout.  Kris: Always love these types of hides.  While somewhat obvious, they are still fun and more interesting than a camo-taped peanut butter jar.  Plus I got a new addition to my penguin collection.  See him? 

Thursday:  Day 11 - First to Find!!!

Mark: This one popped up just as we were walking into Target to shop for our Ragnar Relay trip. 1.2 miles away and we could not resist.  Kris: I just moved from Eden Prairie to Robbinsdale, a good 13-ish miles away from each other but we were back in EP this evening to do a few Ragnar errands and sure enough, a cache is published nearby.  A parking lot favorite in terms of the placement.   EP has a few FTF Hounds that are often hard to beat to the cache but I think we lucked out that it was right at the end of the work day and they may not have been back home yet :)

 Friday: Day 12 - Graveyards & Ragnar Relay Exchange 6

Mark: We were wondering how and when we would find our caches during the Ragnar Relay but Exchange 6 provided us with plenty of time and a cache very close by.  Kris: Not a big fan of caches near cemeteries but this one was within 0.12 mi of where we were hanging out for a few hours.   Luckily we could walk AROUND the stones to the back wooded corner.  An easy find once we got there, probably not much of a need to go over-board on the camo....how many people would really wander back here anyway?

Saturday: Day 13 - Watching the Ragnar Relay runners scurry around like cockroaches.

Mark: Again, a major exchange, #30 along the Ragnar Relay route and there was a cache very close by.   Kris: We were a little loopy from lack of sleep.   There was an easy find but one that requires looking out for a lot of muggles near a parking lot.   This was a very common parking lot cache type.   And luckily all the muggles around were paying attention to what was going on with the race.

Sunday: Day 14 - Success!! Collaboration works!! Thanks Everyone!

Mark: This was really fun! We spent a few weeks collaborating with a few other geocachers on how to solve a VERY HARD puzzle cache and here we are making the find after spending some time at the park comparing and review our answers and then coming up with the final coordinates. Kris: The amount of brain power it took to figure out this cache was crazy!  I give serious credit to the creator, Naturalist Dave, for coming up with this.  It really makes you learn about the park and it's history in order to solve it.  Plus you learn, typos aren't always just typos, they often have meaning in cache puzzles. 

#Geocache365: Our new Project - Week 1

Mark - So last week one of KB's challenge caches came to my attention because someone created a new event to celebrate there completion of that challenge. The challenge cache is GC1AG09 - A Cache a Day... for 365 days? where you have to find at least one cache per day for the next year. And having just updated my Geocaching stats I thought this might be fun to try, my previous longest streak with a find every day was 19 days. I suggested it to Kris and she was all over the idea. So we accepted the challenge and counting the cache we found on the previous evening (Monday) we were on our way.


But rather then just finding a cache everyday we started to think about it and way to make it more challenging and interesting. We just happened to take a picture at the cache we found last night so we thought why not take a picture at every cache that we will be using for our cache a day. We determined that the picture might not necessarily be of the cache nor will is be of us at the cache, but it could be a picture of anything that we found interesting or unusual that we found while we were looking for the cache. Basically a picture that contains our experience with that cache.


Sounds fun right? But we even decided to take it one step further and to Tweet about each cache each day and include that picture in our Tweet. Just a short message about the cache or our experience. We also wanted our Tweets to be found if you did a key word search so we used the hashtag concept # and came up with our own hashtag for this protect. #Geocache365. If you go out on Twitter and search for that hashtag you will find our Tweets.


We are also planning on doing a weekly recap of our finds for that week and include the pictures that we took. So this blog is the first installment.


#Geocache365: Week 1 - August 9th - 15th


Monday: Day 1 - Along here somewhere

Tuesday: Day 2 - cache with a discount

 
Wednesday: Day 3 - Colonel Mustard in the Library with the Candlestick

Thursday: Day 4 - FTF? Nope. STF? Yes and a surprise! #pathtag

Friday: Day 5 - No it is not on Private Property

Saturday: Day 6 - The name says it all?

Sunday: Day 7 - At the end of our 7 mile long run. Nicely Done! Kris: This one is going on my favorites list :)

Results are in

Kris: RESULTS ARE IN AND COUPLE #20 TOOK THE WIN :( Mark: Booo Hissss Kris: Really bummed out about this one because technically they won't even use anything they just won FOR their wedding. Their wedding is next weekend. She already has her dress and I'm sure they have a photographer lined up. I don't have my dress nor are we thinking we'll have a photographer at the reception. Sigh....thanks again SO much to everyone who helped us and keep up to date on our plans by watching this website! Mark: Yes Thank you sooooo much to everyone who was so patient with our mass communcations during the past 2 weeks. Thank you so much for voting.

Kris: We didn't get to do our video interviews tonight as the heat index was over 100 and then storms rolled in so we'll have to try and reschedule for next week. Mark: Yeah I deided to give them a call this afternoon and question the logic of trying to do video interviews when at the time the heat index was about 102 degrees.

We are starting to put in more miles each week to kick start our marathon training.  We officially are in training starting this next week.  I find that I like to get our runs over and done with in the morning before work but I've been feeling much stronger in the evenings.  We took Sugar out for a run with us last week and I think it may have been a little much for her as she was a little sluggish the next day. Mark: In Sugar's defense we did take her out for a 4 mile run and she almost never runs, probably should work her up with some smaller runs first. Same goes for Rugar, our other potential running dog.

Other wedding details:
1) Mark's wedding marathon shoes are in so we need to go pick those up.  Pictures will be posted soon :)
2) I ordered our visors that we will be having embroidered and a veil attached to mine
3) Save the Date cards should be going out this weekend!
4) Meeting with a friend of mine that I went to school with tomorrow.  She does some floral work on the side and is going to quote us on flowers for the reception.
5) Our wedding pathtags will be submitted for proofing tomorrow.

Geocaching:
We started a new adventure on this front!   On 08/09/10 we started the "A Cache a Day...for 365 days?" challenge.  My thought is that I will post about this challenge once a week and cover the caches we picked up for that week.  Since i'm not very good at keeping the blog up to date by more than a week or two. Mark: We are taking a picture at each cache for the next 365 days. Pictures will not neccesarily be of the cache but might be of the area or something interesting about the area, the cache or something we found in the cache. If you are on twitter you can follow our progress by searching for #Geocache365 and then that tweet will also be the "Found It" Log. A typical Tweet/Log will look like this "#Geocache365: Day X - Something interesting http:\PictureLink" Otherwise the weekly wrap up blogs will also include the pictures we took for the week.

Stay Tuned!!!

Kris: Just a quick update for those of you holding your breath......the wedding contest oddly concluded last Friday and the website has stated, since Monday night "Check back tomorrow to see who won" It's now 2 "tomorrow's" later...still no results.

Just wanted to let you all know we are still waiting and hoping could #20 either didn't exist or totally cheated :-P. Other than that, the Save the Date cards are almost out the door and we ordered our blank visors today that we are going to decorate for the marathon.

We also have another video session with our guys Mike and Charlie from Forever Films tomorrow. Should be fun :)